German interior minister offers to resign
MUNICH — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition was facing an uncertain future, as her hardline conservative interior minister Sunday offered his resignation after weeks of battling to change her mind on migrant policy.
Horst Seehofer told fellow leaders of the conservative Bavarian CSU party he wants to resign as both party chief and interior minister, saying he had “no support,” sources at their closed-door meeting in Munich told AFP.
But CSU parliamentary group chief Alexander Dobrindt “does not want to accept Seehofer’s resignation,” participants in the hours-long huddle said.
The lack of clarity from the Bavarian camp raises questions about the future of Merkel’s governing coalition between the CDU-CSU alliance and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
If Mr. Seehofer does quit, the CSU could offer a replacement interior minister if it aims to remain tied to Ms. Merkel’s CDU party. Alternatively it could break up the two parties’ decades-long partnership, depriving Ms. Merkel of her majority in parliament.